Since I first began to criticize the health-re form legislation sev eral months ago, I’ve received hundreds of e-mails and blog entries from other doctors who are also upset with the direction that the “reform” is taking.

They disagree strongly with the American Medical Association and its president, Cecil Wilson. With only 20 percent of physicians as members, the group has come out in support of the Senate health-reform bill, and it is focused on issues (blocking the cosmetic-surgery tax and the 5 percent tax for high Medicare users, for example) that most practicing physicians aren’t really concerned about.

Most practicing docs are opposed to the current reform bills because they:

* Lack tort-reform measures for medical malpractice.

* Don’t do away with scheduled yearly Medicare cuts and other across- the-board decreases in reimbursements.

* Expand insurance to 30 million more people without taking into account the doctor shortage and drop-out rate.

* Increase government oversight and extend a third-party payer system in which the doctor-patient relationship is obscured and most primary-care docs are paid less than veterinarians.

* Imperil our best technology, which is moving in the direction of personalized preventive health solutions, not one-size-fits-all, low-quality insurance that won’t cover it.

Why don’t doctors organize in protest of the health-reform bills and how they will eviscerate the art and science of medicine? In the first place, not only are doctors prohibited by anti-trust legislation from negotiating insurance prices, we’re also prevented by the same laws from banding together against health reform. If we tried to organize en masse, we’d be stopped by the same federal government that is marginalizing us.

Second, most doctors are too busy taking care of patients to spend the time in formal protest. Our altruism may vary, but many of us are quite committed to our Hippocratic oath, and to taking care of all comers — whether they can afford to pay us or not. We just don’t think the government can count on this fact.

It’s no accident that many of the doctors who attended the photo-op “white coat ceremony” at the White House weren’t practicing physicians and had to borrow their white coats from staffers. The sleeves on my white coat are frequently dirty from use.

Finally, too many doctors are sensitive about being called “greedy” and having their reputations tarnished. We are afraid of being singled out if we protest, and some of the hospitals and doctors groups that represent us are cautious about going on the record.

Rather than complain, we suffer in silence, even as our yearly income slips and our overhead continues to rise. See more patients? Most of us feel we should be seeing fewer patients in order to be effective. Those of us who are not afraid to speak out may suffer from inertia and a sense that there is already too much momentum against us.

What can be done? Some doctors have organized despite the difficulty. Almost 50 state, county and national medical societies, representing several hundred thousand physicians, have come out against the Senate health-reform bill.

And 17 state and national medical societies, including the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and Congress of Neurological Surgeons, sent a letter in early December to the Senate protesting the bill, known as “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”

Unfortunately, these protests come under the category of too little, too late. It is probably too late to change the prevailing sheep-like culture of doctors in time to block the current health-reform bills.

But perhaps it isn’t too late for Congress and the American public to wise up and realize that not only will our best technologies be in jeopardy if health reform passes, but so will our best doctors.

Marc K. Siegel is a practicing internist and a Fox News medical contributor.